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by With Death Comes More Death
Summary: After losing to Arima, Kaneki wakes up and finds himself in a world filled with darkness and second chances... (Now cross-posted on AO3)
1. Chapter 1: Blind Rat Stumbling

**Mandatory Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the copyrighted material present in this story.

…

 **Chapter 1 | Blind Rat Stumbling.**

…

The last time Kaneki was cognizant of anything, he experienced the world around him melt into incomprehensible nothingness. All five of his senses failed him. All that his eyes could see was darkness; all that his ears could hear was high-pitched ringing; all that his nose could smell was an undecipherable hodgepodge of different, clashing scents; all that his tongue could taste was bitterness and honey; and all that his skin could feel was lava slowly crawling across his body.

Nothing around him had made sense then. Nothing at all. Not even his thoughts, which were all too distorted to make sense of. His head was an absolute maelstrom-and within that maelstrom, it was impossible for him to focus on even a single thought. If he tried to recall the faces of his friends at Anteiku, his head would bounce to the face of the man who had bested him and had probably killed him and his friends. When he tried to focus on the rage that thought instilled in him, it would then shift back to his friends and the pile of bodies, gore, and masks that his failure had most likely lead to them being. When that was at the forefront of his mind, he would immediately go back to the man who beat him.

It was a vicious cycle—one that made him want to drop to his knees and beg for nothing and the bliss it would provide. Then, as if listening to his prayers, nothing came and when it did, he felt himself fall into what seemed like, at the time, a blissful slumber-a slumber that, considering the severity of his many injuries and the track record of the opponent that spawned them, he assumed to be permanent.

So, that's why, after having reveled in nothingness for what seemed like an eternity, he was surprised to actually feel something. Not the sort of feeling that his body could've tricked himself into thinking was actually there either. No, this was a feeling that touched near the entirety of his body, from his clavicle to his toes. It was soft and light, and it had an appealing smooth to the touch texture. He wouldn't go as far as comparing it to anything close to silk, not even close, but it did nonetheless feel nice to touch.

 _What in the…?_ He thought to himself as shifted underneath whatever was causing the sensation. For a reason unknown to him, when he tried to do so, his body wouldn't respond to his commands. At least, not immediately. Instead, he found that it would take a couple seconds of mental effort to try and get something to even twitch. That led him to think that he had been drugged at some point, but that worry was soon assuaged when he felt his ability to function return to him after some time.

It started with Kaneki being able to curl his fingers into a weak fist. Eventually, that turned into him being able to bend his arm at a ninety-degree angle. After that, he found himself sitting up and that's when he realized that he was on a bed of some kind.

Considering the injuries that he had sustained before his blackout, and the fact that his nostrils were being invaded by the overpowering stench of disinfectant, the young man was able to put one and two together and realize that he was probably sitting in a hospital bed. That fact in itself caused problems for him.

Ken Kaneki wasn't normal. Far from it. He was a half-ghoul, the very literal bridge between humanity and the species of human-like creatures whose only form of food was the prior's flesh. If someone were to figure out that he was a ghoul, the CCG would be called in an instant and he'd most likely be killed, definitely captured and it'd be very easy for him to be found out in a place like a hospital. A ghoul's skin couldn't be penetrated by any sort of sharpened metal, after all.

 _I need to get out of here_ , the half ghoul told himself as he looked around him. His eyes saw nothing but darkness. He had tried to open his eyes earlier but had gotten nothing, leaving him one conclusion. _The lights must be off._ He did, however, find it strange that he couldn't see any other form of light, but he attributed that fact to it being late and the staff keeping the lights outside dim as to not disturb any sleeping patients.

Satisfied with that being the reason for his continued blindness, Kaneki used his hands to feel around for the edge of his hospital bed and when he found it, he threw his legs over the right side of his bed and stood himself up. The moment his weight landed on his legs, he felt them buckle. Thankfully for him, his hand had never left the bed, so he was able to use it to catch himself before he fell flat on his face.

 _That was close…_ Feeling as though he just dodged a bullet as him falling over would've most definitely made a sound loud enough to alert the staff that he was trying to leave, the air around him was just that still, the teen let out a sigh of relief and began putting weight on his weak legs, allowing them to adjust to the weight he was trying to put on them before trying to stand once more. It took a moment but he eventually managed.

Now on his feet, the half ghoul began to ruminate on how he was going to get himself out of this room without being seen by the staff. The fact that he could see no light whatsoever pointed to there being no windows in the room as moonlight, as weak as it was, would still be visible in this pitch darkness. No windows meant that his room was more towards the inside of the facility, meaning more people to try and avoid.

 _Damn,_ the curse went unsaid as he needed to focus his hearing on the world around him. Him being located so far deep into the hospital gave him one advantage, though, especially being in the pitch black dark like how he was. At some point, someone was going to have to pass by his room and when they did, he would be able to use the noise they created to figure out in what direction the door was in without having to stumble around in the dark too much.

 _Come on… Come on…_ Kaneki thought to himself as he stood in place next to the bed that he had awoken in, entire body tensed and ready to throw himself back under the covers just in case a member of staff had decided to check on him.

It took a few anxious more moments of waiting, but the sound that he was looking for did eventually hit his ears. They were coming from behind him and to his right, meaning that he was most likely looking away from where he needed to go.

 _Alright, now…._ Now knowing in what direction he needed to go, Kaneki put all of his focus on the footsteps themselves and seeing where they were heading as the last thing he wanted was somebody seeing that he was awake. So, he needed to make sure that they were just passing by and not coming in.

As the half ghoul stood there in the dark, listening to footstep after footstep as they grew closer and closer, he took note of a few interesting things about them. They were heavy, meaning that the person making them was either male or a heavier set female, but by far, the most noteworthy thing about them was that the rate at which they were occurring. They were rather erratic, coming one step and then two at a time. Maybe someone with a cane or some other instrument to help them walk? At least the extra footstep made it easy for him to track the individual.

Turning so that he was facing the noise, Kaneki found himself reaching out and gripping the side of the bed that he had just pulled himself off of, listening for any indication that the footsteps would stop and make their way into the room he was in. His grip tightened as he stood there, waiting. Not sure if his next few moments would be spent making his escape from wherever he was now or playing dead.

"Yes, I'm going to check on him now." As he prepared himself for what was to come, Kaneki heard a male's voice, calm and formal, ring out, following the footsteps as they moved. Though, they came off sounding muffled because of the wall that the twenty-year-old assumed separated them.

"Yes, I'll be sure to check in with all of you if there are any changes in his condition." After a few moments of silence on the voice's end, it rang out once again. This time, coming off as a lot less stiff than it was before, giving the half ghoul the feeling that whoever the man was talking to, it was someone who was asking a lot out of him but he was trying to stay patient. "Yes, Ruby, I can confirm that the boy is definitely 'not dead.'"

Not knowing if the man was talking about him or not, Kaneki decided to not risk being found out and slowly slipped himself back into the hospital bed, lying with his back facing away from where the voice had come from so that he could keep his eyes open. As he did so, he noticed that he could no longer hear footsteps.

"Alright, I'm about to step into his room right now." Hearing the all too familiar sound of a metal doorknob being turned open, the half ghoul did his best to not tense up where he lay. A task that only became more difficult when the door creaked open. After that distinct noise, there were a few moments of silence before the man let out an affirmative hum and an audible beeping noise came soon after, explaining the sporadic spans of silence that littered the man's sentences. "So, now then… What should I do with you?"

When those last words had been spoken, the stranger went completely silent and started walking over to Kaneki's bed or, at the very least, that's what the footsteps heading in his direction told him. As he neared though, he noticed something strange about what he was hearing. Actually, it wasn't what he was hearing that was bothering him, it was something that he _didn't_ hear.

Kaneki's eyes had been open the entire time and he never heard him someone flip the light switch to his room. That was when he became very aware of the fact that there was something wrapped around his head.

* * *

Ozpin couldn't help but sigh a little at the conundrum that he now found himself faced with. To have gone from supervising the yearly initiation of new students to something this dire, so quickly…. It was rather jarring, even for him–a man who's had to deal with a lot of unexpected events over his lifetime.

Walking across the rather plain hospital room towards the source for all of his exasperation, the headmaster of Beacon Academy made note of the fact that the snow-haired boy that he came to check on had turned over on his side at some point during the night. _At the very least, it looks like he's no longer comatose, so that's an improvement._

Ozpin lifted his free hand to cup his chin but was stopped halfway when he saw that the mystery boy had suddenly begun shaking, violently at that. That told the older man one thing: he had finally managed to break himself free of the chains of unconsciousness, only to awake and realize just where he was and why he was here in the first place.

Letting out one more sigh, the head of Beacon Academy made his way over to the unknown boy-the same boy that the newly minted teams RWBY and JNPR had found lying unconscious in the woods as they were heading back from their initiations, his entire body covered in a layer of his own, dried blood. Not even being able to comprehend the amount of damage that was being dealt to the boy's psyche at the moment, he did all he could do and lay a hand on his upper bicep, hoping that it provided some comfort for the boy.

"W-Where…" Though, when the mystery boy finally spoke for the first time, his voice as shaky as the rest of his body, the older man knew that wasn't going to be the case. "My eyes…" And Ozpin honestly couldn't blame him. "No, no…. What happened…? What the hell happened…?"

That last bit came out sounding like a whimper, which prompted Ozpin to try his best and comfort the snow-haired boy as he did his best to work his way through what had happened to him. "I'm sorry."

That was all he could think to say. The boy had just woke up to find that he had no eyes. What else was there to do until he calmed down?

* * *

Kaneki rested the back of his head against the plastic-feeling headboard of his hospital bed, head still trying to sift through and process all of the information that he had been presented with. Hand reaching up to gently graze the spot where his left eye should've been, he pressed the tips of his index and middle fingers up against the medical bandages that covered not just it, but the entirety of the upper portion of his head. He kept applying more and more gradual pressure to the location until his body forced himself to stop, the absent feeling lying behind the texture of his coverings being too much for him once again.

"My eyes…." Swallowing, the words that had been resting on the tip of his tongue were finally voiced, or rather, they tried to. They didn't get very far as the young man already knew what the answer he'd get back would be. They were gone. At least one of them, his left, totally, the other damaged to the point where it was still there but useless. How? He was a half-ghoul! They should've grown back! Were his injuries at the hands of Arima too great somehow? That his body didn't have the RC cells required to grow them back?

That answer made no sense in the first place! Where did he even get the energy to heal as much as he did when Arima was standing right there over him? How did he even get into this hospital in the first place without being outed as a ghoul? Surely, someone would've tried to stick a needle into him for an IV or a blood test or something! How the hell was he still here?

 _Augh!_ Hands clutching at the sides of his head, he bent his body forwards, pressing his nails into the layer of bandages wrapped around his head and gnashing his teeth together. With every question that invaded his mind, it felt like a thousand more filtered in with it, bombarding his brain so much that it was actually beginning to hurt. _Stop! Stop! Stop—!_

Kaneki began to tremble once more as he sunk further and further into the typhoon that was conquering his mind, but before fully delving into it, the sound of irregular footfalls reached his ears once more, which distracted him for long enough so that he could push away all of the offending thoughts and center himself in reality once again.

Head turning over towards where the noise came from, the half ghoul tried to pinpoint where the noise was coming from and where it was heading, as after he had the extent of his injuries explained to him, the man who had done the telling left him alone to go and do something, having been gone since.

Not a moment later, Kaneki heard the doorknob twist open once again and he waited for the refined sounding man to say something as the footsteps neared once more, being accompanied by a strangely pleasant smell. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long.

"My apologies for stepping out like I did, I needed to make sure that the staff here knew that you were awake." The newly blinded young man could only grimace at the thought. He could already picture the fussing and the questions now. "For now, they sent me down with some food to preoccupy you while they work on sending someone to take your IV out." A sigh immediately followed those words. "Unfortunately, it seems that your body has chosen a pretty inopportune time to wake itself back up."

Kaneki furrowed his brows at what the man just told him, mouth moving before he could think about whether or not asking was actually a good idea. "IV?"

"Oh, so you didn't notice it?" At the old man's question, Kaneki began to feel all over his left arm with his right hand, freezing when he got to the back of his elbow and felt the same fibers that were wrapped around his head. "My apologies." The footsteps began once again, moving from his left to in front of him, slightly to his right. The scraping sound that followed indicated that the man might have pulled a chair out to sit down. "I assumed you noticed."

Kaneki chose not respond to that, instead focusing all his mental processes on the fact that a metal needle somehow managed to penetrate his skin. Even in their weakest state, a sword couldn't cut ghoul skin, so how did—?

"Ah, could you lean back for me a bit?" The question nearly made the half ghoul jump out of his skin. "I need to set your table up so you can eat."

Turning his head to face where the older-sounding man's voice had come from by habit, he was reminded of the futility of the action. Hands clenching up into tight fists, he shook the thought out of his head and cursed at his own inability to keep focused on what was happening around him. His blindness made him more vulnerable than he had ever been in the past and he was in unfamiliar territory with a man who was just as unfamiliar. He _needed_ to keep focused. Questions and fates could be dwelled on when he was sure that he was no longer in danger. "Oh, um, alright."

Doing as he was told, Kaneki allowed the older man to work in front of him, deciding that it was best to try and reorient himself with the senses that he had left. Other than the noises that the man was making in front of him and a little to his right, he could vaguely hear a mechanical ticking somewhere in front of him and slightly leftward, signaling that there was an amount of space between his bed and where the room ended. Just how much was something he couldn't be certain of, but it at least didn't sound too close. There was a rhythmic beeping noise coming from his left and slightly behind his head in pairs every second or so. That told him that he was hooked into some sort of machine, he assumed that it is was an EKG.

Kaneki frowned when he realized that there was nothing else in the room for his ears to latch onto. That was up until the unknown man's voice rang out.

"Ah, there we go, finished." Head turning towards where the voice had come from, Kaneki blinked, or rather, attempted to, as that was impossible at the moment with the bandages that were over his eyes. It was then when he noticed it, a smell that he hadn't noticed before despite it wafting in the air right in front of him. It was savory and it was warm, but strangest of all, it was absolutely making his mouth water. "You're all set to eat, young man. Hopefully, you don't mind hamburger. It was all the cafeteria had ready on such short notice."

 _Wait, hamburger?_ If Kaneki had the ability to do so, his eyes would've bulged out of his skull at the reveal. _H-How…?_

Extending his right hand out in front of him, hand shaking as he did so, he stopped when he felt the smooth, slightly textured surface of the tray that the man set up for him. Feeling around, his fingers soon made contact with something that was raised a little above the tray. Assuming that it was the plate the burger was on, he began to feel around the center of that until he found what was supposedly emitting that intoxicating aroma.

Sure enough, what he felt when he wrapped his hand around it was what he would normally associate with a hamburger. The bun that surrounded it was soft and pliable, and when he pressed his fingers into it, he could feel the hints of warmth coming from the patty through the bread.

Lifting the piece of meat and bread up from the plate, he guided it up to his mouth, an act that was done with caution due to him not being all too sure about if the burger was heading in the right direction or not. When he felt it touch his lips, he bit into it and was immediately met with an experience that he hadn't had in a long, long time. He could feel his teeth sink through every centimeter of the bread and meat, which then filled his mouth with a taste that nearly made him let out a moan in pleasure and a tear slide down his cheek, it was so astounding.

It tasted exactly how it smelled, warm and savory, but there subtle hints of salt and some other tastes that only seemed to be amplified for some reason. He assumed that it was because it had been over a year since he last was able to bite into a piece of food and taste something that didn't make him want to wretch in disgust.

"I take it that you're enjoying the food?" Being too preoccupied with devouring the slab of meat in his hands, Kaneki didn't even bother responding to the question, seeing as the question was most likely meant to be rhetorical. "I'll take that as a 'yes', then."

It didn't take long, maybe twenty more seconds, but eventually, the last piece of hamburger passed through his lips and began traveling into his esophagus where it would then go into his stomach for digestion, and when it did, a thought crossed his mind that nearly made him start choking.

Hands quaking, Kaneki stared at his hands, or at least the space where they should have been as if they were covered in the blood and viscera of a human being. _What the hell happened to me?_ Not wanting his distress to be obvious to the man in the same room with him, he let his hands fall to his knees, which were covered with the thin fabric of the blanket that the hospital provided him with. He tightened his grip on it, though the task was rather difficult to the shaking that was present in his hands. _Goddammit…. None of this is right. A ghoul can't eat human food, much less have a damn IV be put into their arm! So, how-?_

"So, now that you're finished eating—" Thankfully, a distraction once again presented itself before he could delve all the way into that endless rabbit hole and break down again. "—do you mind that I start asking you some questions, mister…"

Surprised by the sudden intrusion of his mental tirade, Kaneki couldn't stop it from being shown in his voice as he spoke. "K-Kaneki… Ken Kaneki. N-Nice to meet you, sir." His head practically bowed itself in a show of appreciation and gratitude. "Thank you for taking care of me while I was unconscious."

"Don't worry, it was no problem, Mr. Kaneki. As the headmaster of an academy, I'd be remiss in turning away a young person who was so obviously in need."

"'Academy'?" Kaneki, knowing better than to try and raise a brow, tilted his head to the side to signify his confusion.

"Yes, Beacon Academy. You're currently in its infirmary if you were curious."

Kaneki nearly let out a curse when he heard the tone in the man's voice. It was clear that the older of the two men thought that answer was enough to satiate any questions the other would have, but it only really caused more to pop up into his head.

"I'm sorry, but did you say 'Beacon Academy', sir? I'm sorry but I'm not familiar with that name." Every part of him cringed when those words left his mouth, but it was needed for him to progress the conversation in a way that benefited him.

"Oh, really? Not at all, you say?" Kaneki nodded his head at the question. "Hm, that's concerning. Tell me, do you know in what kingdom you're in right now?"

 _'Kingdom'?_ Not knowing what in the world the man was talking about, the younger of the two simply shook his head and waited for an answer. One eventually came, though it was a few seconds later and sounded rather, for lack of a better word, troubled.

"Do the names Vale, Atlas, Mistral, or Vacuo mean anything to you? How about Remnant?" Once again, Kaneki shook his head, confused as to why the man started to sound like he did for a second, but that confusion was struck down in favor for his own uneasiness when he realized just what was bothering the stranger. "Well, this is a troubling revelation, to say the least. Are you sure that you don't recognize any of those names? Not even vaguely?"

"N-No, sir." The nineteen, going on twenty, year old swallowed hard after he spoke. So hard that it was probably audible. "Should I?"

"Very much so. It seems that our doctor's evaluation of 'massive head trauma' didn't just stop at what happened to your eyes then."

Kaneki nearly allowed himself to relax when he realized just what the older man was implying. For a moment, he believed that he was going to be asked many questions that he did not have the answer to. Though, that just left him with a lot more that needed answering. Thankfully, if this was heading in the direction that he thought it was, then he was just given a platform to do so.

"Are you saying that I have some form of amnesia, sir?" Kaneki made sure to add a tinge of uncertainty to his voice as he asked that question.

"Most likely. It'd be difficult to explain why you don't remember the name of the world you live in otherwise."

Kaneki's brows furrowed under the cover of his bandages. His mouth opened to protest the statement, but held his tongue, instead of doing something that would get him the answer that he'd need.

Leaning forwards, Kaneki gripped the right side of his head with the corresponding hand and stayed like that for several seconds, using the ticks from the clock to keep track. He thought about adding a little shaking into the act to add to the effect, but he got the response he was fishing for before he could.

"Nothing?" Kaneki nodded. A soft breath from the man followed. "Well, being optimistic never hurt anyone, I suppose. In any event, you're probably curious as to where you are and what you're doing here."

The room was silent for a few moments, save for the noise of footsteps. Then, when those stopped, the air continued to be still for a few moments. Kaneki counted twelve ticks from the clock before the man spoke up again.

"First off, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Hunting Academy."

* * *

Typically, when Kaneki received answers, he expected the questions in his head to lessen, but Ozpin's explanation had only given him more to ponder.

From what he was told, Kaneki was no longer in Japan. He was somewhere far from it actually. According to the man who identified himself as Ozpin, he was in a world known as Remnant.

Ozpin explained Remnant as being made up of four kingdoms: Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, and Vale-the last of which being their current location. Now, while the headmaster didn't go into detail about how all the kingdoms worked, he did mention something that peaked Kaneki's curiosity. The four kingdoms were all made with one goal in mind, establishing locations where the human race was safe from a force that Ozpin referred to as the Grimm.

The Grimm, apparently, were creatures of pure darkness. They took on the shape of animals but were much more distorted-looking in nature. They felt no emotion and were drawn to negative emotion, which often leads to them attacking humans as doing so successfully would often time lead to the emotions they were seeking. That made them humanity's natural enemy and just like the ghouls of his world, the human race moved to do everything in their power to combat them. Even going as far as establishing schools whose one purpose was to teach the future generations how to combat them. The two were so similar that he couldn't help but draw the parallels between this world's main issue and his own.

Still, for all the similarities, it was the differences that took firm hold of Kaneki's mind and he found himself nearly being overwhelmed by stranglehold it had on him. Thankfully, he had the many questions that were trapped in his head to keep him sane, to keep him focused on something other than the reality of the situation. Like the question of if he was really in a different world to begin with, for example!

How could Kaneki just trust Ozpin, a complete and utter stranger, to have told him the truth? The explanation that the man had given him sounded like something out of an anime, book, or manga. Sure, objectively speaking, his own world didn't fare much better with humanity being in an eternal war against a species of flesh-eating creatures that looked exactly like humans, but that was far from the point. He had seen and knew his insane-sounding world to be reality. With him being blind, there was no way that he could confirm anything to be real. Not with the utmost certainty.

Then, there was him being blind. How in the world did he end up like this? Why didn't his regeneration bring his eyes back when it clearly healed the rest of his body? For that matter, how could he have an IV stuck into his arm? How did he eat that hamburger without any problem? All evidence pointed towards him being something other than a ghoul, but that was impossible!

Kaneki had been turned _into_ a one and had been one for more than a year. He had a ghoul's kakuhou implanted into his body. There was no way that he could just turn back.

 _So, how?_ That two-word phrase was the very base of every question he had. _What in the hell happened to me?_

"Ah, it looks like they're here." Suddenly, Ozpin said something that pulled the supposed-to-be half ghoul out of his thoughts. A majority of him hadn't even been aware that time was passing while he was thinking. Looking up from his lap, towards where the headmaster's voice had come from, Kaneki gave the man his now go to sign of confusion: a tilt of the head. "Right, I probably should have mentioned this to you earlier." A barely audible beeping noise rang out from the direction Ozpin was in. "Team RWBY, the group of my students that were responsible for finding you, wanted to check up on you. I'm sure that you understand as to why."

Kaneki opened his mouth but before he could respond, the sound of the door opening to his left cut him off.

"Ah, here they are now…."

For some reason, the next thing he heard after Ozpin saying that, was a feminine voice rebuking someone in an angry whisper.

…

 **Chapter End.**

* * *

Hey, yo, a new story like I said. Got some plans for this story, let me tell you that. Also, let me assuage some concerns right now. The story isn't going to be primarily in Kaneki's POV as that'd be rather boring in my opinion, as while writing a blind character is certainly interesting for me, I can imagine that reading a story with no set setting can get rather frustrating, so I'll keep any Kaneki POV to a minimum in favor of, you know, actually setting up the setting and the world around our local blind boy.

Also, some of you will probably be asking about if the Blake/Kaneki pairing will carry over from the previous story. I mean, maybe? I'm not quite sure where I want to go if I wanted to add a romantic angle to this story, which I probably will. I do still like the pairing in theory and I just ended up not executing it properly in my opinion. Though, I have been toying with the idea of something with both Yang and Weiss. I don't know why, but that both sound kinda appealing to me for some reason. Can't forget Velvet, by the way. She's still most definitely in the running. Hell, I may end up doing something close to a harem, but with an actual resolution. Who knows?

Also, by the way, the Neo sub-plot and everything regarding Haise probably isn't going to get carried over, at least not in the same way that it was. I feel like it got pretty convoluted. Some fat needed trimming and I didn't quite deliver when it comes to execution either, so some major revision is going to be done if it were to indeed come back.

Also, also, prepare for some original content in the near future. I'm probably going to be staying as far away as possible from the early plot threads of RWBY as Kaneki, being a newcomer to being blind and all, doesn't really have a lot to add to them in my opinion.

Anyways, see ya next time, ya nerds. Go check out Glass Lilies by FineChyna if you haven't already. It's a great story made by someone who is also great, so it really deserves your attention cuz greatness should always beget attention.


	2. Chapter 2: Lead the Dance

**Mandatory Disclaimer:** I own nothing that is copyrighted, obviously. Oh, and any voice changes from this chapter and the last are entirely intentional choices to match the voice of the character that has the POV. I'm not getting lazy already, I swear.

…

 **Chapter 2|Lead the Dance.**

…

Ruby felt conflicted as she leaned up against one of the trees that lined the clearing in the Emerald Forest that she was standing in, her reason for being there, being the same as all of the other eight people who were with her: it was the location that the Beacon teachers said that they'd pick them up at after their completed initiation. A part of her was absolutely ecstatic about what just transpired, but another part of her felt confused and a whole other part actually felt guilty. It was as if her body was being pulled in three different directions at the same time! In what direction should she go? She just didn't know. That's probably why she currently had her head down and shoulders sagged, despite just being named the leader of the newly formed team RWBY.

Was she happy about being recognized by Ozpin himself? Sure, she was! Who wouldn't be? But why her, though? Wasn't she the same person who nearly got herself killed trying to impress Weiss? Did none of that really happen? Was it some sort of really complicated hallucination and she actually killed during the initiation?

Ruby let out a quiet sigh at the question. Just like all the other embarrassing moments in her life that she wished just didn't happen, the answer was, of course, a big, fat no. They did in fact happen and the daggers that were being stared into the back of her head was proof of that fact.

The newly named leader of team RWBY couldn't help but feel for the girl that had just been named her teammate and partner. It was clear from the very moment they met that Weiss Schnee was shooting for nothing more than the top, her first step being named the leader of a team. Now, that, obviously, didn't come to fruition, but it wasn't like Ruby expected to be picked for leader. She was fifteen! After her screw up with those beowolves, a part of her didn't even think that she was going to pass the initiation, so being named leader of a team didn't even seem like a possibility!

Still, despite that, Ruby couldn't help but feel more than a little responsible. She did screw up Weiss's concentration when she was about to kill that beowolf and that easily could've had a bearing on why she wasn't chosen to be a leader.

"Hey, why so down, Rubes?" The voice of her older half-sister, Yang, ripped the sulking girl out of her thoughts. "You've been looking all… sulky ever since we got the news from Ozpin." Looking over to where the voice had come from, Ruby found that she was now standing to the right of her. The moment their eyes met one another, her half-sister let out a loud and clearly exaggerated gasp. "Wait, don't tell me!"

Ruby couldn't help raising an eyebrow at that, every part of her expecting some funny business from her less than serious sibling.

"You don't like me being on your team!" Despite having anticipated something like that coming from Yang, Ruby still found her somehow sagging her shoulders more than she had before. "How could you?" In very much Yang fashion, she leaned her body back and put her right forearm on her forehead. Ruby couldn't stop herself from smiling just a bit at the action. "After all of that encouragement I gave you the past couple days, _this_ is how you repay me?"

"What?" A bit of a snort escaped from Ruby's nose, which was then followed by a bit of a blush creeping on to her lips at how loud her half-sister was being. "Oh, come on, you know that isn't true."

Yang threw her arms out to the side. "Then why are you acting all glum for?" Those same arms planted themselves on her sides. "It have anything to do with that Schnee girl that you got partnered with?"

"Um…" Ruby blinked before turning her head back to what was in front of her. She thought about outright saying it, but instead restrained herself to just nodding.

"Aw, come on, Ruby!" An arm was suddenly slung around said girl's shoulder, causing her to nearly topple over due to her smaller frame. "You know better than to let people like ice princess over there get in your head." Looking over to the body that the arm was connected to, Ruby found that it belonged to one Yang, who was pointing over towards her right with her thumb. Seeing as she couldn't look that way due to Yang blocking her view, Ruby assumed that she was pointing at the person she dubbed 'ice princess'. "Don't you remember what I told you about dealing with people like her?"

"Um…" Not quite sure what specific bit of Yang-ly wisdom that her half-sister wanted her to remember, Ruby decided to say the first one that came to mind. "Punch them in the face—?"

"—No, no! Not that one!" Yang cut her off, whisper-yelling into her ear. "The _other_ thing."

"Huh?" At the same time, Ruby narrowed her eyes at her half-sister and flinched her head back to signal her confusion. "But I don't remember you telling me—"

"—Okay, okay." Yang raised an open hand towards Ruby. "What did dad tell you about dealing with people like ice princess, that I probably just reworded at some point?"

"Oh, right!" Like a lightbulb, the advice that Yang was trying to allude to popped into Ruby's head. "'Don't let them get in your head because they probably just want to get in your pants—'"

"Woah, _Woah_!" Nearly jumping out of her skin from the sudden exclamation, Ruby glared lightly at her half-sister after she managed to get herself to calm down. "Dad told you that? _Our_ dad?"

"Yeah, pretty sure." Ruby nodded. She wasn't really sure what her sister was getting at. What other dad did they have?

A troubled expression dawned on Yang's face, as well as a small amount of red, as she looked away from the younger girl, slipping her arm off Ruby's shoulders as she did so. Five or six seconds passed before the blonde looked back over at her, red still present on her face. "Did he have someone over? Could it have been someone like, I don't know… Uncle Qrow? That sounds like something more up his alley."

"Um… Maybe?" To be entirely honest, Ruby wasn't all too sure if her dad had friends over at the time, as it had been a fairly long time ago. She did hear someone else's voice, though she wasn't even sure that it was her dad or not. "Don't really know for sure, though…. I do remember that whoever it was, he was speaking funny! Kinda like," she cleared her throat to do the best impression she could manage, "Don't wet 'em in your fwed because they prolly just to wet into your phants."

Leaning forward, Yang reached up and started to rub at the bridge of her nose. "Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that wasn't dad." Ruby opened her mouth to argue but then realized that what her half-sister was saying actually made a lot more sense than what she was about to argue for and stopped herself from doing so. "Seriously though, what made you think that dad, of all people, was the one to tell you that."

"Dunno." Ruby shrugged her shoulders. "For some reason, all I remember about that time is—"

Before she could finish with that train of thought, she was cut off by a rustling noise coming from her immediate left. Still being in the middle of the Emerald Forest, Ruby snapped her head over to where the noise had come from on instinct, but found herself feeling a mix of disappointment and relief when she saw that there was nothing there but bushes and trees.

"Huh? There something wrong, sis?" Glancing back over her shoulder at Yang, Ruby saw that she was giving her a confused look, before then leaning over slightly to her left. Ruby assumed that she was trying to get a look at what she was looking at. "You hear a beowolf growl at you?"

"Oh, uh, no— Well, I don't think so." Ruby turned back to look at where she was looking before. "I thought I heard something moving out there."

"Really?" Yang, in the most Yang way possible, asked that question as if they weren't all standing in a forest where a beowolf attack could very much occur. Ruby could just picture her shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. "Well, it's probably just a bird or a rabbit or something. I wouldn't worry too much about it."

"Yeah, you're probably right…." Ruby nodded in response to that, but for some reason, a gut intuition really, she felt as though that wasn't the case. "Whatever it was sounded like it was pretty big, though."

"That so? Wanna go check it out then? There's no harm in making sure that it isn't a bloodthirsty Grimm that wants to eat our flesh."

"True…." Not being someone who could resist the possibility of a scenario like that happening, Ruby turned towards Yang, flashed her a look that she hoped gave off the feeling of seriousness and determination, nodding at her as she raised a balled fist. "Alright, I'm going to go check it out. If I start yelling, you know what to do."

"Yep." Yang flashed Ruby a toothy grin as she planted her hands on her hips. "Get Crescent Rose and chuck it in your general direction, right?"

"Alright, good. Wish me luck. Remember, if I die—"

"—Yeah, yeah, bury you with Crescent Rose and clear your browser history." Crossing her arms, Yang looked at her with what seemed to be a perplexed look. "I still don't get why you asked me to do that, by the way. It's all just weapon—"

"Yang!" It was now Ruby's turn to whisper yell at her older sister, eyes darting over towards the rest of the group, which was standing a good distance away from the two of them, to make sure that they hadn't heard what Yang just said. "What did I tell you about exposing all of my deep dark secrets when we're in public?!"

"Um… Would you believe me if I said that I don't remember—?"

"—We literally talked about it yesterday!"

"I don't know, sis." The smile that was now on Yang's face as she talked told Ruby the exact opposite story. "Things were pretty hectic yesterday with all of the packing and dad yelling at me to actually start packing…."

"You finished packing two days ago!"

"I don't know what to tell you, sis." The blonde then proceeded to perform the most infuriatingly exaggerated shrug that Ruby had seen in her life. "It probably just went in one ear and right out the other."

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Ruby shook her head in defeat and just turned her attention back to what they had been talking about before. "Alright, whatever. Just make sure that I don't die, okay?"

"Aye, aye, cap'n." Ruby could just hear the saluting in Yang's voice as her half sister said that.

Being unable to take any more of her sibling's near constant sass, Ruby just focused all of her attention on the bushes and trees in front of her. Her silver eyes doing a quick look over to make sure that no signs of immediate threats. When she felt that her safety upon walking in was assured, she barged right into the trees, looking for the source of the earlier noise.

It took a few minutes of walking forward aimlessly, it even got to the point where she just going to assume that it was nothing, but after a while, she managed to find something that seemed like it could've made the sound. The thing in particular was actually rather easy to notice, even with the rows upon rows of trees and bushes that made the world around her melt into a messy mix of greens, browns, and more greens. A boy in all black slumped up against the trunk of a tree was a rather hard thing to miss, especially when that boy had a head of hair that rivaled Weiss in how white it was.

The first thing Ruby noticed about the boy was that he wasn't moving, save for the occasional rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed in and out. That motionlessness prompted her to take a step towards him, but that turned into a flat out run when she saw a drop of red come from his head, which was hidden from full view by his hair due to the angle at which it was slumped at.

"Hey, hey!" Ruby slid down onto her knees as she neared him, handing finding its way onto his right shoulder when she got up to next him. "Are you okay?"

Ruby didn't get a response from the boy, but the sudden pressure of her hand on touching his shoulder, did cause his body to shift in a way that made his head loll over to the right, revealing his face to her. He was pale, looked about the age of one of the Beacon upperclassmen, but all of those details paled in comparison to the crimson strands that lined down his cheeks, all of which coming from a single area-his closed eyes.

Ruby had always been fast, but her feet never moved faster as when she saw that.

* * *

Ruby was anxious as she walked towards her destination, her eyes scanning the doors that she was passing by for the specific number she was looking for. _Room 012, room number zero and then twelve…_ _Ah, here we go!_

With a burst of speed walking, the leader of the newly created team RWBY began closing the distance that existed in between her and the door, mind drifting back to the events that got her here in the first place.

When she realized that the boy out in the forest was injured, Ruby immediately ran back to the clearing to get help, yelling out for them to come help her with him. At that time, thankfully, Headmaster Ozpin and Goodwitch had already shown up to pick them up. It was safe to say that they were surprised to find her running out of the bushes, screaming on the top of her lungs, but they listened to her despite probably seeming crazy and followed her back to the boy. They started working to help him immediately and that was basically the entire story.

Now, Ruby was here, standing in front of the room where the injured boy was being held in. Apparently, he was awake, or at the very least, that's what Headmaster Ozpin had told her when she checked in with him earlier.

Every part of her felt anxious as she stared at the wooden door in front of her, her body beginning to bounce up and down as she tried to psyche herself up into going in. Eventually, that bouncing ceased and turned into her looking around the hallway that she was in, noting things like how the lighting made the tile floor and the bland wallpaper on the walls look like they weren't one-hundred percent white. She would say that they had a greenish tint to them, if she had to pin down a certain color.

 _Aw, come on!_ All of a sudden, the voice in her head, she was pretty sure that most people would call it 'logic', started to scream at her. _Would you quit stalling already, you dingus!_

When the screaming started, Ruby pried her eyes off of the wall that she was using to distract herself and placed them back onto the slab of wood that was making her so nervous, gulping when she did so. She wasn't looking forward to this. Not in the slightest.

Ruby Rose had never been the kind of person who liked meeting new people, which totally had nothing to do with the fact that when other people got involved, all of the coordination that Uncle Qrow had drilled into her during their sparring sessions went right out the window. Basically, when she got involved with other people, especially ones that she didn't know all too well, or when other people got involved with her, she tended to get real clumsy. And as someone who really took pride in her coordination when it came to fighting, she didn't like that. Nope, not one bit. So, naturally, she tended to try and avoid meeting new people when the opportunity arose. Keyword being: 'tried.'

Opportunity, fortunately, or unfortunately, had at some point taken a liking to her. The young girl didn't know why, but she found herself in situations like these all too often, having to face her one and totally only fear.

That past experience helped her develop ways to get over her anxiety, but that didn't stop her from feeling it initially and wanting to get away from it as quickly as possible.

 _Alright Ruby, you can do this!_ Slapping her cheeks in a sign of determination, she stared at the door in front of her. _It's going to be alright, just remember your training and things should be fine. Just gotta make a good impression!_

As she thought that, 'logic' began screaming at her once again. ' _Make a good impression?' Are you kidding?! Why would you need to do that when you're the one who got him help?_

'Logic', as it always did somehow, made a really good point. Why was she stressing so much about making a good impression when she was the one who found him in the forest? That was more than a good enough impression! So, what she was worrying about?

When she made the realization, 'Logic' let out a triumphant cheer. Ruby could practically see that part of her mind pump her fist in the air. _Exactly! Now get in there and—_

"Ah, there you are!" Before she could finish that train of thought, it was interrupted dead in its tracks by a certain half sister of hers.

"

AH!" _AH!_ Both Ruby and 'Logic' let out a yelp the moment that Yang's voice slammed into her ears. Turning around to face her, Ruby glared at her lone sibling with hands at her chest.

Yang just stared back and the two of them stayed like that, completely silent for a good few seconds before anyone said anything to break it.

"So…" The blonde began with an all too proud smile on her face, "Why you just standing out here?" She glanced over at the door Ruby was staring at and then back at her. "You do know that you're never going to be able to meet the guy if you just stay out here, right?"

"Y-Yeah, I know…." Ruby slumped her entire upper body over.

"Feeling nervous, again?" Yang's question was laced with what was clearly sympathy, which made Ruby feel a little better when she nodded her head limply in response. That improvement in mood, however, quickly faded away the moment Yang cupped her chin and angled her violet eyes up towards the ceiling. "Oh."

A few moments passed before those purple dots were turned back down to look at Ruby.

"Well, you want me to go in first then?" That question was asked with a widening of the eyes and a finger being pointed up towards the ceiling. "I can start things out if you're so worried. Plus, the other two should be here in a bit, so you can let them go before you too if you're that worried about it."

"Ah, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you—!" Wrapping her arms around her half sister in relief, Ruby began thanking her over and over again.

"—Hey, could you imbeciles quiet down?!" Ruby was stopped in her appreciative tracks by the whisper yelling of a certain ice princess. "Did you two forget that we're in the infirmary, _at night_?"

"O-Oh, yeah!" Turning towards the newcomer, Ruby threw her hands over her mouth as her eyes fell upon the last two members of team RWBY. One of which frowning heavily and the other… Well, she was reading a book as she walked. From having known them both for a couple of days, that seemed like pretty typical behavior.

"My bad." Ruby let out an awkward chuckle. "I completely forgot."

The one who had said that, Weiss, let out a sigh as she reached a hand up to massage the bridge of her nose. "How did I manage to get stuck on a team with you idiots?"

"Oh, come on Weiss, lighten up will ya?" Yang being herself, she was quick to jump on the snow-haired heiress for saying that. "A little bit of noise shouldn't be that big of a deal, right?" She threw her arms out to her sides. "I mean, they let us in here, right?" The blonde then looked over to her partner, the girl with the book in her hand. "Come on, back me up on this, Blake."

"I'm going to have to agree with Weiss." Unfortunately for her older half sister, Yang did not get the support she was looking for from said partner. Instead, she got the dark-haired girl flipping to the next page in her book and doing the exact opposite of that. "It probably isn't a good idea to be so loud in a place like this. Not now, at the very least."

"Aww…" Being ganged up on, two to one, Yang slumped her body over. "Buzzkills the lot of you."

Weiss let out a scoff in response to that statement. "More like 'actually sensible human beings'."

Raising her head from its lowered position, Ruby's half sister narrowed her violet eyes at the heiress and opened her mouth to say something, but Ruby, knowing her sibling, cut her off before she could.

"A-Alright, guys!" Raising her hands up towards the two, who looked like they were about to tear into each other with words, Ruby got in between them and let out a chuckle-a chuckle that was too awkward for her liking. "How about we all get in there, huh?" Ruby smiled at the her teammates as she began inching towards the door they were all standing in front of, turning her body so that her back was facing it as she did so. "Yeah, yeah! Let's all get in there, yeah?"

Now in front of the door, Ruby turned to face it once more and took in a deep breath. Reaching out towards the door knob, she gripped it, turned it, and then pushed the door open. The first thing her eyes were drawn to was the white-haired boy who was sitting in the one bed in the room. It seemed that he must've heard them coming because he was looking right at her. Though, on second thought, that didn't seem like the right way to describe what he was doing, considering the bandages wrapped over where his eyes would be. 'Looking towards her' seemed like a much more apt way of describing it.

"H-Hey…!" Silently cursing herself for the stutter, Ruby stepped into the room and then took another to the side to allow her teammates the space to do the same. As she moved, she noticed that headmaster Ozpin was standing behind the boy's bed. "How's it going?" She raised a hand in greeting, which she immediately regretted when she remembered that he probably couldn't see her do so. "My name's Ruby, Ruby Rose. I'm the one who found you out in Emerald Forest a couple of days ago."

The boy was silent for several seconds after she had said her less than stellar greeting. For a few moments, she was worried that he couldn't speak or if she offended him in some way, but those worries were thankfully dashed when he started to speak.

"Really? Well, thank you, Ms. Rose." There wasn't a lot of emotion in his voice as he spoke. Honestly, it'd be pretty accurate to say that there was none in there at all, but there was something about the way he said it that just screamed that he really did mean it. It might've been the smile and the small bow of the head that he did as he talked, but nonetheless, seeing that he was actually grateful for her finding him made Ruby let out a relieved sigh.

Finally being able to relax, Ruby allowed her back to become loose once again. Once her body started to relax itself, she let out a laugh as she crossed her arms behind her back, hoping that the built up awkwardness that was leaking out of her with every 'ha' wasn't too noticeable. "Oh, you don't need to thank me, I just did what any good huntress would've done."

"Even if you say that, I still owe you my life." Ken waved off her attempts to be humble without hesitation, which made a small part of her really happy for the recognition. "Even if I had woken up, there was no way that I was going to be able to get out of that forest. At least, not with how I am now."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Ruby opened her mouth to ask that same question, but unfortunately, someone of the blonder kind had decided to ask it for her. Turning to where the voice had come from, Ruby found that the rest of team RWBY had started to make their way into the room as well with Yang in front of the pack. "Oh, I'm Yang, by the way. Your savior's extremely proud older sister."

"Yang…" Ruby groaned that as quietly as possible as to not show that she was embarrassed.

"Oh, um…" Ken turned his head towards Yang, bowing his head towards her as well. "Hello to you too." When he raised his head once again, he turned over his shoulder to look towards Ozpin, who perked up at the acknowledgement. "Do you mind…?"

"Ah, yes, there are only two more people coming in after Yang." Ozpin turned towards said last two people coming in. "Their names are Blake Belladonna and Weiss Schnee. Miss Belladonna, Miss Schnee? Would you mind making yourselves known to Mr. Kaneki, his injuries unfortunately make it so that he's unable to see you."

Ruby frowned at the statement. She could've told as much from the fact that he had bandages wrapped around where his eyes would be, but there was something about how Ozpin had said it that bothered her. She didn't know what, but she could tell that there was more there.

Before she could continue on with that train of thought, however, team RWBY's leader had her attention taken away by the only other person in the room with dark hair.

"Blake." Was all that said girl said in response to Ozpin's request. Looking over, Ruby found that her teammate had at least decided to put the book in her hand down in favor of looking straight at the bedridden boy and the headmaster standing right behind him.

"Weiss." Ruby turned her head to the look at the heiress in question, being pleasantly surprised by how little her partner had actually said—. "It's nice to make your acquaintance. I must say that I appreciate how polite you're being. I find it a rare trait in people our age."

"Oh, well…" Ruby was sure that if he could blink, Ken would've. "Thank you for the praise?"

Ken bowed his head after saying that, which seemed to make Weiss especially happy. Or, at the very least, that's what the more pronounced smile on Weiss's face told Ruby.

 _Never mind._ Ruby slouched her body forward over how wrong she had been at that moment.

"Um… Ken, correct?" Team RWBY's leader nearly jumped when Blake decided to speak up all of a sudden. The boy in question turned towards the girl about a second after the initial question was asked. When his head was turned towards her general direction, he looked at her for a few moments and then nodded his head. "Would you mind if I asked you a question?"

"No." The boy let out a chuckle and reached up to scratch at the tip of his chin. "Though, unfortunately, I don't know how much I'll be able to tell you at the moment."

Humming, Blake raised an eyebrow at the boy with bandages on his head, which, to Ruby, seemed like a pretty unthoughtful thing for her teammate to do. Thankfully, her worries were waved away when she asked, "What do you mean?"

"It seems that Mr. Kaneki is unable to remember anything more than his name at the moment." Ozpin was the one to answer that question for the boy. He let a deep breathe in and then out before he continued. "I have my suspicions as to why, but as I'm most definitely not a medical professional, I'm going to have to wait for the staff to do their second check up before I can confirm anything. For now, it's best to just assume that Mr. Kaneki is currently unable to answer all questions about his past."

Ruby frowned at Ozpin's explanation, before then turning towards Ken. What the headmaster was implying about the boy troubled her to no end. It seemed that he didn't just wake up not being able to see; he woke up not being able to remember where he was or how he got here either!

"Ah, alright then." Turning towards the dark-haired girl, Ruby noticed just how much more troubled the girl looked. It took only a few glances to confirm that the rest of her teammates seemed to have the same reaction to the news. Weiss's entire body began to shift back and forth uncomfortably, from her eyes down to her feet, and Yang simply frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. Still, despite clearly being uncomfortable, that didn't stop Blake in speaking. "My question doesn't deal with your past."

"Oh, then I don't see any problem with that." Ken nodded as he spoke.

"Earlier, Ozpin said that you were unable to see, but I couldn't help but notice that he failed to preface it with a 'currently' or an 'at the moment'."

"Ah, yeah, I think I get what you're trying to say." Ken's once pleasant expression turned into a troubled one as he scratched at the back of his head with his left hand. His fingers didn't stay where they were, however, as they soon began to trace the bandages on his head, only stopping when they neared where his eye was hidden under bandages. They lingered there for a few moments before his hand was placed back down at his lap. "While I can't be entirely sure why Ozpin didn't say anything like that, I think that he was trying to imply to that my injuries have made it so that I completely unable to see anymore."

Everything was quiet after Ken said that.

* * *

"Hey, Headmaster Ozpin?" Ruby called out to the much older man as she and her teammates were being herded out of the room that Ken was in.

"Do you know what's going to happen to Ken after you guys do your second check up?" The question had been plaguing the young girl's mind ever since it was brought up that he was both completely blind and couldn't remember a thing. She only really kept herself from asking it because of Ken being there in the room with them and that just seemed like the most insensitive thing in the world to do.

"Yeah, it doesn't really seem like the guy has somewhere to go." Yang was quick to back her up after she asked the question, unfortunately, Ruby was unable to see what her sister or her other teammates were doing from where she was standing, directly in front of them all. "You aren't just gonna dump him in a hospital for the rest of his life, are you?"

"Well, Ms. Rose, Ms. Xiao Long…" Ozpin glanced over at Ruby before beginning to walk off towards his right. The young girl didn't hesitate in following him. The footsteps she heard from behind him told her that her teammates did the same. "I'm afraid that I can't guarantee anything at this point. I still need to contact the police and have them see if he's in their databases at all, run tests, etc."

"And if the police don't find anything?" Ruby felt her spirits fall when Blake asked that question. To her, the pure thought made her feel bad for the boy. To go from waking up with no recollection of where or who he was, to having to figure out where exactly he fits in the world all by himself.

"Oh come on, isn't that just a little bit preposterous?" Ruby couldn't see what Weiss was doing, but she had a feeling that she was throwing her arms around in a fit. "There's no way that the police can just find nothing on someone."

"I've seen stranger things happen, Ms. Schnee." Ozpin turned his head to glance over his left shoulder as he said that, Ruby assumed that it was to look at Weiss. When he was finished, he looked back out in front of him. "So, if that does indeed happen to be the case, I'm afraid that the scenario that Ms. Xiao Long presented won't be out of the question."

"What? Seriously?" Ruby could hear the anger and frustration in her sister's voice as she spoke. "You can't just dump the guy in some hospital to rot forever!"

"He wouldn't rot in the hospital forever, Ms. Xiao Long." This time Ozpin looked over his right shoulder, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he did so. "They'd keep him there for however long it takes for him to get adjusted to having lost his sight. I imagine that if his memories return to him at some point during his adjustment, they'd allow him to contact his family so that they could get him out of there as well."

"Still, though! What if there's no one out there for him! Are they just gonna have him sleep on the streets or something?!"

"Unfortunately, I'm quite unsure about what would happen in a situation like that." Even when he said that, Ruby noted that there was a certain lack of emotion in the headmaster's voice. "My best assumption would be that they'd set him up in some sort of government-funded housing program, where they'd help him get on his feet and adjust to life without sight."

"He wouldn't be able to stay there forever, though, right?" Turning to look back towards her sister, the first thing Ruby noticed was the look of pure determination present on her face. She could relate with her sister in that regard, she wanted to do something for the boy, but she didn't know what. She couldn't just let him end up on the street, she was the one who found him out in the forest, after all! If she just let him face that alone, then what would've been the point of helping him in the first place? "Come on, there's no guarantee that he's gonna be able to make it out there on his own." Next to her sister, Ruby noticed that both Blake and Weiss were becoming more and more uncomfortable with the prospect of leaving Ken out in the real world with no support. "There has to be something that we can do…."

"Ms. Xiao Long, my job as headmaster of Beacon is to ensure the safety, wellbeing, and education of my students. Not those we happen to find injured out in the woods." Ruby couldn't help but flinch a little at the sheer lack of emotion in Ozpin's words, though she could detect a hint of sympathy in his voice as well. "I would be more than happy to help Mr. Kaneki if he was a student at this school, but since that's not the case, I can't—"

"—Oh, I know!" An idea popped into Ruby's mind suddenly. "You said that you can't help him because he's not one of your students, right?"

Ozpin simply turned towards the young girl with a small smile spread across his lips. "Glad we're on the same page then, Ms. Rose."

Ruby couldn't help but smile back at her headmaster. She was the kind of person who got really, really happy when presented with the opportunity to help someone less fortunate, and it seemed that she was getting an opportunity to do so.

* * *

As Kaneki sat there in what he was told was the dark, though he only really knew because Ozpin told him so, he let out a sigh as he allowed his head to further sink into the pillow that was under it. He just barely managed to get through that conversation with those four girls without letting it slip that he didn't actually have amnesia. Out of habit alone, he almost corrected the girl, who identified herself as Blake, when she called him by his first name.

 _That must mean that wherever I am, the culture is going to be most akin to that of the West._ Kaneki made sure to make a mental note to use all the information that he had gathered about Western culture through reading, and apply it as best he could here. _Speaking of… How am I going to get myself back home?_

Losing the entirety of his eyesight complicated things a lot. If he was truly in another world like it very much sounded like he was, his first step in getting back would be to try and find out how he got there, to begin with, but research implied reading through a multitude of texts and that simply wasn't going to happen now.

There, of course, was the option of braille or whatever equivalent that they had in Remnant, but he highly doubted that the texts he needed were translated into Braille or even narrated into audio form. He could try and get someone to read the books to him, but that dredged up its own set of problems.

 _Alright, so step one is going to have to be getting used to not being able to see._ Kaneki frowned at the thought as he knew that was going to take a fair amount of time. He was going to need to learn how to navigate without seeing or anyone guiding him, read braille or Remnant's equivalent language, and he was sure that the list went on and on. He wasn't even mentioning all of the new systems and customs of this new world that he was going to have to learn if he wanted to fit in. _Dammit…._ His fists gripped the sheets that covered him tightly. _This is going to take too much time…._

Kaneki's mind couldn't help but wander back to the friends that he unknowingly left behind in his world. _Manager… Irimi… Koma… Nishiki… Hide… Touka…_

The snowy-haired young man couldn't help feeling like those names were like flies buzzing around a corpse. Their incessant buzzing was annoying, grating. It was almost enough to make him want to lash out in anger or irritation, but he didn't, because there was a part of him that understood their purpose there.

He, right now, was nothing more than a dead body. Useless in every sense the word, but the flies…. They reminded him that there was still work that needed to be done. A dead body, unless stored in a place that kept it away from bacteria or any such insects that helped in the decomposing process, never stayed a dead body. If it took a few months, a few years, a few centuries, a dead body was going to change.

Kaneki was going to change. He had been useless once in his life already and he'd rather die than let that happen again.

…

 **Chapter End.**

…

Hey, yo, quicker turn around with the update this time! I mean, seeing as the last time I updated, the span was about six months, I think pretty much any amount of time would've been a faster turn around.

Anyways, thanks for all the support you've been giving me with this new endeavor, it really helps a lot. Especially since I didn't know that this was a direction I wanted to take and commit to, when I had a story with two years of work put into it. So, you all will be appreciated always.

Also, thanks to anyone who left a review that was more than a couple lines long. I really appreciate it. Especially you, Robert. I see you with the harsh, but fair constructive criticism! Don't think I don't appreciate it.

Also, also, I can already see that some of you might think that nothing really happened in this chapter and to you, I say, that was sort of the point. This isn't a story that's gonna go quickly for the sake of getting to the cool parts (there are gonna be plenty, I swear) I have in mind, this is going to be a proper slow burn and so, strap yourselves in! This ride is going to be slow paced and built on character development and relationship building!

What a fun ride we have in store, folks.


	3. Chapter 3: Interlock

**Mandatory Disclaimer:** If any of you seriously think that I own any of these series, then I'm gonna have to give you the hand. You high key a dummy.

…

 **Chapter 3 | Interlock.**

…

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us, Weiss?" The girl in question let a huff out through her nostrils, making sure to keep it at a barely audible volume. She might've been annoyed by the fact that she had just been asked that question literally two minutes ago, but that didn't mean that she had to abandon all decorum in the situation. That would've made her no better than the beasts that she was learning to kill! Or, much worse, Yang! And she'd rather perish than allow that to happen. "Come on~!" Weiss couldn't help but cringe a bit at the inflection that her team leader used as she spoke, not particularly enjoying the sing-song tune that it had all of a sudden adopted. It implied a lack of seriousness, which was something that she absolutely couldn't stand in people, especially when it came to important things like education. "It's got to be more fun than anything that's in that stupid textbook!"

Looking up from aforementioned 'stupid textbook', Weiss then turned to look at the three that had been annoying her so. "How many times am I going to have to tell you this? I am completely fine with not wasting my time going out to get Ken some clothes." Her pale blue eyes then focused themselves on the blonde that was standing behind their leader. "Especially when some of us here should really be spending this time to, I don't know, _study_?"

"Aw, come on!" Yang, as Weiss fully expected her to, flashed her a smile. "Learn to lighten up a little, will ya, princess? It's not like we're gonna be gone all day. You can always study when we get back."

"For the last time, my answer is no." Weiss, not being at all affected by the jabs that her loudmouth teammate was oh so subtly trying to send at her person, brushed off the attempt to goad her into succumbing. Hoping to try and talk some sense into the rest of her teammates, her eyes then shifted over to the only teammate she had who took academics as seriously as she did: Blake. Well, she assumed that she did, given how she always had a book in hand. "I'm surprised that you allowed them to talk you into doing this, Blake. I thought that you of all people would take your education seriously."

Unfortunately, instead of getting the support that she had anticipated from the ever reading girl, all Weiss got back was a noncommittal shrug of her shoulders. It made her want to slam her forehead straight into her desk. _Ugh, why are all of my teammates hopeless?!_

"Oh, come on! You seriously all can't be—" Weiss, finally becoming fed up with her teammates' inability to take something as simple as studying seriously, started what was going to be a rant that put them in their place, but she was unfortunately stopped before she could even fully begin.

"—I agree with Weiss." The person who had stopped her was the very person who had caused the discussion in the first place and, strangely enough, he was actually agreeing with her. Turning her head to look at him, just as all her teammates did, she found that he hadn't left from the spot on the floor, in front of her and Ruby's beds, in which her teammates set him down about ten minutes ago. The only thing keeping him from sitting on pure hardwood being the thin mat that Ozpin had given to him use as a bed, as an actual one would've never been able to actually fit in their room. "I'd rather you guys not fall behind in your studies for me." One of his pale hands, which had been busy fiddling with the box that he had come into the room with and apparently had been given to him by Ozpin, reached up and started to scratch at the back of his head. Suddenly, a smile found its way to his lips. "If it'd be more convenient for you all, then I don't mind waiting until the weekend to get me extra clothes."

Weiss blinked at the boy, who suddenly revealed himself as the only person to be in their right mind, and then smiled. Raising her hand towards Ken, she turned to look at the rest of her teammates, ready to jump on the opportunity provided to her. " _See_? Even the one you're doing this for is saying that it isn't worth it."

" _Nah_ , don't worry about it, Ken." Yang, however, was quick to deny the boy in his attempt to try and convert them to what was irrefutably the right side of the argument. Not that Weiss expected any different from her if she had to be perfectly honest. "We can't have you walking around in that hospital gown for an entire week now, can we?"

"I just said that I was fine—"

"— _Anyways_ , let's go the two of you." Weiss nearly slapped herself in the forehead at the blonde buffoon's attempt to stay away from the actual heart of the issue. "Ozpin said that we needed to be back before it dark, after all." Yang raised both her hands and began pushing the other three out of the door. While she did so, she glanced over at Weiss and flashed her a toothy, clearly exaggerated grin that only served to make her even more irritated. "Weiss, since you want to stay, you can look after Ken."

"Fine." Weiss kept herself to a simple huff to signify her annoyance. While she didn't like having a distraction from her studying, she did see the need for making sure that there someone here to keep him from accidentally maiming himself.

"Make sure to help him get around if he needs it!" Ruby yelled as Yang pushed those leaving with her out of the room completely. Eventually, the door shut itself with a thud and a click, thus leaving the two snowy-haired teens alone.

Weiss, finally having a moment to herself, let out a sigh and turned her attention back to the book in front of her, choosing to ignore the sounds of paper ripping coming from behind her.

* * *

Weiss raised a hand to cover her mouth as she yawned. About ten minutes had passed since her teammates left her and Ken alone, and she could already feel her eyelids begin to become heavy. Her mind immediately began to blame the night before for the reason for her tiredness. She had been kept up by the rest of her teammates helping get Ken situated in their room. Of course, the main culprits were Ruby and Yang as they refused to stop asking the amnesiac questions.

Personally, Weiss couldn't understand the point of doing something like that. When asked, they kept trying to explain that they were doing so to make him feel at home, but he had amnesia, for goodness's sake! There weren't many questions he could answer in the first place, so why try? Wouldn't that just remind him of that fact?

"Tired?" Weiss nearly jumped out of her seat when she heard Ken's voice come from behind him.

Head quickly turning towards where the voice had come from, the heiress found herself glaring at the boy, the thought that he might not be able to see her doing it only crossing her mind a few seconds afterward. By then, she was too confused by what she was looking at to yell at him.

The first thing that caught the girl's attention was the glint of light that reflected off the glass pitcher that had made its way to in front of Ken. Noticing that lead to Weiss noticing the small, black porcelain piece that was connected to the pitcher's opening, its sleek, smooth construction leading up to a funnel-like opening. Having seen it a hundred times before, she immediately recognized what it was, though the baggie of brown dust that was placed next to it most certainly helped.

"A coffee dripper?" Weiss tilted her head to the side. "Why do you have something like that?"

"Ah, I requested one from Ozpin a few days ago." Ken's head never turned away from the aforementioned item as he finished slowly slipping it into position. Weiss noticed that his hands were trembling the entire time he did so, but that was more likely due to his condition than any trepidation.

"Why would you go and do something like that?" Eyebrow raised and interest peaked, Weiss stood herself up from her chair, deciding that her studying could be finished when her curiosity was satiated. She started to walk over to the boy, which prompted him to look up at her as she did so, most likely following the sound of her shoes as they got closer and closer.

"To be honest, I don't really know." Like a slap in the face, the melancholy in Ken's words as he spoke, coupled with the slight incline of the corners of his lips, nearly made her take a step back in shock. "Earlier, when Ozpin and his staff were doing their checks on me, Ozpin muttered something about coffee to himself. I don't really know why, but he did." His head turned to face the dripper once more. It was just then, that Weiss noticed that the boy had cupped his chin in contemplation at some point. "But there was something about it that just… I don't know, felt familiar. As if there was something about it that was important. The next thing I know, I'm asking Ozpin if he could get me one."

Ken's smile left his lips, as did his hand from his chin, but the prior was only gone for a moment. For the next second after, that ghost of a smile returned. "So, with all that being said, I wanted to try and see if I could make some."

Blinking, Weiss's head nearly flew backward at the whiplash she experienced from the sudden shift in topic. One moment, Ken was expressing more emotion than she had personally gotten to see and the next, he was offering her some coffee. She actually found herself being a little frustrated by it.

Unlike the rest of her teammates, though she really couldn't tell with Blake, Weiss wasn't very interested in getting to know the blind boy at all. Not to imply that she didn't sympathize with him, after all, that's he had to go through, but sympathy and interest were two completely different things. There wasn't a part of her that was even remotely curious in learning about his past or how he managed to get himself in that position. To her, the only thing that really mattered about him was that he was now a teammate of hers, which to be fair, was the same case for all the rest of the people on their team.

All that being said, Weiss was far from heartless. When Ken allowed all that emotion to show for the first time, it felt like she was a child again, trying to get a look at a bird that was sitting on a branch of a tree that was just a bit out of sight from her bedroom window. She just got a glimpse of something interesting, but it was gone so quickly that she didn't get to digest it at all and that was extremely irritating. What was worse, was that a part of her wanted to pry and ask him about what he meant, but due to his condition, there was no way he was going to be able to give her an actual answer.

That left Weiss with only one option. She took in a deep breath and let out a sigh.

"Sure, I don't see why not." Crossing her arms over her chest, she decided to just go along with what Ken was offering. "But how are you going to make it when, you know?"

"Ah, about that…" He trailed off as he reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "I was wondering if you could help me with that."

With a blink, Weiss stared blankly at the blind boy.

* * *

Coffee was a staple in Weiss's life. Ever since her young teens and she actually had the ability to choose, it was her hot beverage of choice. It wasn't as fancy as the tea she had been forced to drink when she was a child, but that was more or less one of the reasons why she had taken to it in the first place. Plus, she always thought of drinking tea the same as drinking a plant, so she had no problem in saying that it was the superior drink.

All that being said, however, Weiss couldn't say that she was an expert on how to make it. At least, not in the way that Ken was currently presenting her with. She had seen it been done many times over at cafes and the events that her family always forced her to attend, but she never actually tried to make a cup with the drip method.

That, however, didn't stop her from accepting Ken's request for assistance. It was clear that coffee was just as, if not more an important aspect of the amnesiac's life than it was for her. And considering aforementioned amnesia, a part of her was curious if he'd remember something by making a cup. He didn't even need Weiss to do all too much in the first place, just help him get the supplies he needed, so it wasn't as though she was losing a lot by humoring him for a half hour.

"Alright, I got you all the supplies you needed. Now what?" Weiss told the blind boy as she kneeled herself down where he was sitting, relieving her arms of the burden they were carrying-a burden being made up of an electric water kettle (already filled with water), a bag of coffee filters, and a pair of porcelain cups. All of which, being items easily retrieved from the dormitory's student kitchen.

Ken nodded before suddenly extending his right hand out towards her. "Um… Do you mind guiding me to the filters?"

Humming in affirmation, Weiss reached out and gripped the boy by his wrist lightly, dragging the thin but sturdy appendage down to the specific supply he needed.

"Alright, do you mind getting the kettle started?" Once his hand was on the filters, Ken dragged them to where he was sitting and began opening them. "I'll get the rest ready in the meantime."

Not seeing too much of a problem with the request, Weiss stood up with the kettle in hand, turned to make her way towards the nearest power outlet, but stopped when she realized that there was a question that needed to be asked beforehand. "Are you sure you aren't going to need any help?"

Looking up from the materials in his hands and up at her, Weiss watched as Ken's nostrils flared and smiled, before then turning his head back towards what he was working with. He kept silent for a few moments, the smile fading with the seconds and being replaced by an expression that Weiss had a hard time trying to describe. His lips were thin and tilted downward, but not enough in which she could differentiate it from his usual expressions.

"Well…" Weiss, being irritated by his perpetual silence and standing there tapping her foot, decided to break it and actually do something. "Are you going to answer the question?"

"Oh, um…" When he began to fumble back a response, Weiss let a breath out through her nostrils and turned to start boiling the water. "My bad."

Ken didn't say anything else after that, which served to only irritate the heiress even more as she placed the kettle on her desk and plugged the kettle into the socket next to it. Turning it on, she turned to face the amnesiac teammate. "And?"

"I'll be sure to ask if I need it." The statement prompted Weiss to throw her hands up in irritation.

With that, the dead silent room filled with the rising sound of boiling water and the heiress watched the blind boy use his shaky hands to put the materials together. First came the filter, which was a process in itself for him. Left hand already grasping the coffee dripper, he didn't have a hard time in getting it over and into what was close to the needed position. At first, Weiss assumed that the boy was going to just leave it at that, but he did the exact opposite of that. He began to use the tips of his fingers to feel around the lip of the dripper's funnel, adjusting the filter with largely unnoticeable nudges. The only reason Weiss even noticed was of how his slender fingers would twitch in specific directions.

"Ah, Weiss?" Ken speaking all of a sudden knocked Weiss out of her fixation on the boy, causing her eyelids to flutter as her eyes shifted up to his face, which was pointed slightly off to her right. Turning her own attention towards that same direction, she found herself looking at the kettle, which was showing that it had finished boiling the water inside it.

Turning back to Ken, Weiss found that he was smiling. "…How did you—?"

"—The steam escaping it, I could hear it stopping." Weiss blinked at the explanation, having half-expected a joke from the boy, she couldn't help but be surprised by the lack of one. She blamed the rest of her teammates for that. "Now, do you mind bringing it over here?"

Deciding it best to try and get that lapse in focus behind her as quickly as possible, Weiss did what the blind boy asked of her and picked the kettle up off her desk, and carefully made her way back towards Ken as to not spill any of its boiling hot contents.

"Here." With that, the heiress placed the kettle down next to the dripper Ken was still holding onto.

"Ah, good." The blind boy then reached out with his open left hand. "Do you mind?"

Restraining herself to a shrug of her shoulders, Weiss once again gripped Ken's wrist and pulled it over to the handle's kettle, making sure to have his palm make direct contact with the handle. "There."

"Thanks." With a smile, Ken nodded his head at the air a bit off to her left, which admittedly made her smile and snort a bit herself.

Desired kettle now in hand, Ken lifted it up and began to shakily drag it up and over the dripper's funnel. When it was where he wanted it to be, though Weiss didn't exactly know how he himself knew that, the boy began to tilt the kettle until a small stream of water came out the spout and landed onto the filter, which in turn caused the piece of white paper to deepen in shade. The boy did that for a couple seconds before stopping and putting the kettle down once again.

"You seem to know what you're doing." Weiss's voice was questioning as she lowered herself into a kneeling position.

Ken's body visibly stiffened after she said that. He turned his head to look at her and he kept his visionless gaze on her for a few moments, before then flashing her a smile and cupping his chin with his free hand. "Does it seem that way? To be honest, I'm just letting my hands do all the work for me if you know what I mean."

Weiss hummed back in response to the question, fully understanding what he meant by it. Every single person in the world had that one action that they could perform automatically and it seemed that Ken's was making coffee. _Maybe he worked as a barista at a cafe at some point?_

The heiress had to admit that the idea fit the boy. A job in customer service would at least explain why he was so polite when the rest of their contemporaries were decisively not.

Concluding that to be the case unless proven otherwise, Weiss's eye was caught by the blind boy's hand, which after being released from its duty of holding the kettle, began to reach out for the general direction of the sandwich bag of coffee grinds sitting next to the coffee dripper. His hand didn't get to it immediately, rather he felt around for it for a few seconds before finally finding it and picking it up. The bag already being open, Weiss assumed that he did it while he was preparing, Ken tilted it and started to shake its contents onto the awaiting filter.

When it was empty, Ken replaced the bag with the kettle once more and Weiss found herself anticipating him beginning his work, but before he did so, he glanced up at her with an expression that, to her, implied uncertainty.

"Um…." Ken's right hand, which had spent the entirety of their conversation firmly locked onto the dripper, reached itself up and began to scratch at his cheek.

Sensing sheepishness in the boy, Weiss decided to not waste any time and ask him outright, "Did you need something?"

"Do you mind helping me pour the water?" The question was asked with enough trepidation that it was noticeable on Weiss's part. His face fell as well, too. "When I'm pouring, I need to adjust the amount of water as I go, but I, um, can't really do that now, unfortunately."

"Oh, come on." Not understanding why he would even bother asking the question at this point, Weiss found herself becoming somewhat irritated by it. "All I've done up until now is help you, do you seriously think that I'd turn you down at this point?"

"Oh, uh, alright…." His hand switched over to massage the back of his neck as he spoke. "Sorry, I just wanted to make sure that you were okay with it."

"What even made you think that I'd be opposed to the idea?" Weiss couldn't help in asking that question in her irritation. "I don't have much choice in the matter, considering not helping could lead to you hurting yourself."

Ken's massaging stopped as she finished and as he lowered his hand back down to the dripper, he turned his head to look away from her. "Right." His hand then stretched itself towards her. "I need you to guide my hand as I go, make sure I don't start to pour outside of the funnel or too much in."

"Seems simple enough." Weiss nodded her head, being silently relieved that Ken didn't water to watch for anything too complicated. While she's seen plenty of people make coffee in this method, it wasn't like she knew the intricacies of the subject. Reaching out, the heiress gripped the blind boy's kettle holding hand once again and guided it so that it was right above the dripper. "Alright, you can start when you're ready."

"Got it." With a nod of his head, Ken began to tilt his hand forward, allowing the water to begin to once again come spilling from the kettle and onto the beans, which would then soak up the clear, steaming liquid up like it was a thirsty beast.

Weiss watched the display with an all-consuming interest. There was just something about watching the translucent liquid be taken into the deep brown of the grinds that she just found entrancing, a feeling that only became more pronounced when Ken's hand began to move. Because then, not only could she see it, she could _feel_ it–the amount of control that the boy was exerting over the kettle in his hand as he began to trace circles into the medium-fine grind. Every slight twitch of the muscles in his hand could be felt through the pads of her fingers as he moved the kettle around the funnel, all in the name of keeping the stream of water coming out of the kettle even.

As Weiss watched him trace, she wondered just why he even asked her to guide his hand. It seemed that he very much had things under control, but then she noticed that the water was coming dangerously close to the edge of the funnel on one side and so, she did the job that was she asked to perform, gently nudging the boy's hand away from the direction it was going as to not disturb him as he poured. It took Ken a few seconds to respond to the guidance, almost as if he were hesitant to take it, but when he did, he corrected his course immediately.

This was an event that happened over and over again. Ken got close to the edge, Weiss would correct his trajectory. Close to the edge, correct his trajectory. Edge, correction. The only reason the cycle was stopped was that he stopped pouring altogether. It was just then that she noticed the full pot under the dripper.

* * *

After that, not much was said between the two teens as Ken worked on giving out their allotted portions of coffee. The only time words were uttered were when Weiss needed to tell the boy to stop pouring, lest he causes a spillage.

When the darkened water was where it belonged and cooled to the point of being consumable, Weiss picked the cup up and started to sip on it. The moment the hot liquid touched her taste buds, her silver eyes widened. The coffee was good. It was _really_ good. Not the best she's ever had granted, but those cups were from the best cafes in all of Atlas, using the best beans available. The fact that the one in her hand got anywhere close was a clear testament to his skill.

Weiss's mouth opened to ask where he learned how to make such a good cup of coffee, but she stopped herself right as they were on the tip of her tongue. She kicked herself for almost making what would've been an extremely insensitive mistake on her part. Instead, she decided to observe the boy as he idly sipped away at his own coffee.

The part of his face that wasn't covered up in bandages was completely unreadable, as his lips weren't bent in any specific direction, nor were his facial muscles tensed in any particular way either. Really, the only part of his face that displayed any emotion, paradoxically, was the part that was covered up as she could just vaguely see a slight downward tilt in his brows. Also, there was a slight bit of discoloration in his bandages, near his eyes, but she just assumed that was coffee spilling onto him by accident.

Eventually, the boy must've sensed her staring because he suddenly turned his head over towards her. "There something wrong?"

"No." Weiss put the cup in her hand back up to her lips to take another sip. "I was just thinking."

"About what?" A smile cracked on his stagnant lips. "Not about how bad my coffee is, I hope."

Weiss couldn't help the snort and smile a little at what was honestly a lame attempt at a joke on Ken's part. "No, of course not. Your coffee is actually really good. Not the best I've ever had, but considering the quality of the beans you used, it's most definitely up there."

"Ah, you can tell the quality of the beans just from tasting it?"

"You can't?"

Ken shook his head as he cupped his chin. "No, not really." His sightless gaze was then turned back to the cup in his right hand. "For some reason, I can't help but think that it tastes about right." The blind boy stared at the cup for a couple of seconds, doing so for long enough to make Weiss want to say something, but he turned to look back at her with a smile before she could do so. "Still, I must say that being tell something like that is pretty impressive."

"Thank you very much." Weiss, being someone who generally gravitated towards praise, couldn't help but bask in the one that Ken was giving her. "I happen to be an avid coffee drinker."

"Really?" His cusped fingers quickly transitioned to him scratching his chin. "Well, would you mind doing something like this with me again? I don't know if it'll lead to my memories coming back, but I think making coffee is the best place to start. It's my only place to start really."

"Hm…" Weiss hummed in faux contemplation-faux because there really wasn't much to contemplate. It was a win-win situation no matter how she looked at it. "I don't see any problem doing that. Besides, it's not every day where you can get coffee this good for free, especially here at Beacon."

The smile was wiped off Ken's face when she said that. "I thought your family was one of the richest in Remnant?"

"I wasn't really worrying all too much about the free part." The heiress pouted at the question, though it was more aimed towards herself than it was Ken, given the fact that he couldn't actually see it. "Besides, my family being rich doesn't mean that I'm free to spend money on a whim."

"Ah, alright then." His voice was awkward as he raised his cup up towards her all of a sudden. Though, she noticed that it was aimed slightly off her right. "I assume that we can call this a done deal then? I make coffee for you and you help me make it?"

Weiss brought her own cup up and tapped it against Ken's, a satisfying _clink_ noise resonating through the air as the two pieces of porcelain touched one another. "Deal."

After their verbal agreement on the matter, the heiress brought the cup to her lips to take another sip, before another thought came to mind.

"You know…" Her beginning to talk drew Ken's attention away from his own cup. "If you keeping going at this rate, I think that you're a shoe-in for my favorite team—"

Before she could finish, the sound of the door behind her opening and then slamming with an audible thud cut her clean off, nearly jumping at the two loud noises coming in quick succession of one another.

"—We're back~!" Weiss felt rage build up inside her as she heard Yang's voice call out in a sing-song manner. "What's up, you two? You guys getting— Oh, hey, did we miss a bonding moment or something?"

Turning to glare at her blonde teammate, Weiss found herself watching the three of them pile in, one after another.

"It looks like it." Blake was the one to say that. Her voice as dead as it usually tended to be.

"Really?" In contrast, Ruby's voice was as lively and annoying as it usually was. "Oh, crud! Our bad! Do you guys want us to leave or something?"

"No, it's fine." Barely being able to keep her irritation in check, Weiss let out a deep, drawn-out breath through her nostrils. "I need to get back to studying anyways."

"Huh? Wait, Ken, you managed to get miss stick up her butt away from her precious textbooks?" Yang sped over to Ken's side as she spoke, kneeling down next to him with her eyes locked onto the heiress the entire time. Weiss couldn't help but glare at the smirk that her anthesis had on her lips. "I didn't know you were such a smooth talker." She nudged the blind boy in the side with her elbow. "To think that we had such a natural casanova in our midsts this entire time."

"W-What? No, it was nothing like—"

Weiss decided that it was probably to try and tune the rest of the commotion out after that. Letting out a sigh, she stood up from where she knelt and began to make her way back to her desk, cup half-full with coffee still in hand.

Annoyingly loud and intrusive teammates couldn't take that away, at the very least.

…

 **Chapter End.**

* * *

Yo, finally done. I think this is a quicker turnaround then last time, but I don't really know. Not going to bother checking. Anyways, going to assuage any fears before I continue.

No, the fact that this chapter exists doesn't mean that this story is going to be a harem. I was never going to do a harem, that was entirely supposed to be meant as a joke. I'm trying to build character dynamics here people. Can't have all of these characters hate one another. That'd just lead to an overall depressing story and that's not what I'm going for. I'm more of a slow build to a massive depressing type of guy.

Anyways, sorry if Kaneki seems OOC to you. In the end, we all see Ken in different lights and this is how I see him. You can tell me that I did him wrong, but just don't be a dick about it. I'm not wasting my time on dicks. I have the end of a college semester to worry about, so y'all pricks can go fuck yourselves. ;)

P.S.: FineChyna just roasted me so hard via callback to something stupid I said. Someone please end my never ending suffering. :(


	4. Chapter 4: Negligent Thoughts

**Mandatory Disclaimer:** Something, something, something about how I don't own these IP's and mean to make no profit out of them. Check out the Pat Reon (but seriously though, don't give me money.)

…

 **Chapter 4 | Negligent Thoughts.**

…

Letting a satisfied breath out through her nostrils, Blake put the palms of her hands up against the front and back covers of the book she had spent the few hours reading, shutting it with a firmness that she'd only use when she finished yet another novel. This particular one had been about a man who suddenly woke up to find himself to be a gigantic cockroach. It had been an interesting read, to say the least, one that detailed the feelings of a man who suddenly found himself to be completely isolated in a home that he shared with his entire family. There were several parts that she found to be rather relatable, especially now, when she was essentially sitting all alone in her dorm room.

Putting the novella down on the shelf next to her bed, Blake glanced over at the edge of her bed, down at the reason why she prefaced the words 'all alone' with 'essentially'.

In a technical sense, Blake wasn't alone in her dorm room at all. There with her was the mysterious, blind, and amnesia-ridden boy who Ruby had found in the Emerald Forest not a few weeks ago. In a lot of ways, he was no longer the same. The bandages that were wrapped around his head were now gone, having been replaced with an orb of glass that was painted white and silver and a pair of all black sunglasses with a thin, sleek metal frame. The same fate went for the hospital gown that he had been forced to wear for the majority of his first days here at Beacon, having been replaced by a baggy, plain white t-shirt and a pair of slim-fitting, black sweatpants that Ruby and Yang picked out for him.

The boy that received those clothes was sitting on the floor next to her bed, head buried deep into a book. Though, considering his condition, it would probably be more apt to say that he was finger deep into the book sitting on the side of his right knee.

 _Wait, no…_ Being slightly mortified by her poor job of phrasing, and slightly relieved by the fact that it only existed within the safe confines of her own head, the dark-haired girl tried to think of a way to rephrase what she just thought. Though, after a few moments of contemplation, she found herself being unsuccessful in that task.

Shrugging her shoulders and being content with just shoving that slip up to the very back part of her brain, Blake decided to direct her focus on something else, mainly the digital alarm clock on the bookshelf that sat between her and her teammates' beds.

 _6:30 already, huh?_ Blake picked herself up off her bed and put her palms on the small of her back. Pushing against it at a slightly upward angle and bending backward, she let out a soft moan of satisfaction as several pops rang out through the air. _How much longer are the others going to be?_

Walking over towards the boy she was tasked with keeping an eye on, the girl glanced over her relatively new teammate's shoulder to see how he was progressing. She would've just asked normally, but due to the fact that his ears were currently preoccupied with a pair of earbuds, she was unable to reach out to him with her voice alone.

Thankfully, however, Ken seemed to notice her approaching somehow and pulled one of the earbuds out, before then turning his head to look over his shoulder at her. "Oh, did you need something, Blake?"

"No, not really." The dark-haired girl shifted her hips to the side and crossed her arms over her chest. "How have you been doing?"

"Oh, well…" Ken glanced back down at the book on his knees. "It's going well. I think that I'm getting the hang of it, though my fingertips…. They're going to need to be a bit more sensitive. I'm still having trouble telling some letters apart from others."

"That so?" She walked over to the front of the boy and knelt down so that she could better look at his work. "Did you at least manage to translate what the staff assigned to you?"

Her blind teammate hummed and nodded his head, before then reaching up to scratch at the back of it. "Though, I didn't really translate it. Mostly, I got the basic idea of what it was trying to say and then filled in the gaps the best I could from there."

"I'm sure that much would be fine. At least, fine enough to convince Ozpin that you're fit to start taking classes."

"That's a relief then." Ken looked up at her and shot her a grateful, thin wisp of a smile, which didn't persist long on his features before being quickly replaced by his usual neutral expression. "Still, I'd like to try and get the hang of it before doing something like that. My ability to recognize the symbols I do know is still a bit too slow for my tastes."

Blake couldn't help but smile at the determination that he was showing, though she did find his perfectionism in the matter a bit concerning. "That may be the case, but no one anyone's asking you to do that much, that quickly. I'm sure everyone's more than willing to let you take your time with this."

"Hm…" Ken cocked his head to the side in what Blake assumed to be agreement. "I appreciate the concern, but I would still prefer not taking my time with this. I…" His head bobbed from left to right as he went silent. "There's just something about the idea of me being in this room, all day and all night." When his face was visible to her once again, she noticed that a frown was now on his lips. "It doesn't sit well with me."

"Don't like our company?"

"No, it's not that." Blake found herself being a little amused at how seriously her teammate was acting. She had meant it as a joke and he was taking it in the complete opposite direction. "Whoever I was before I lost my memories…" He reached up and placed his fingers on the back of his neck, before then leaning his head back to look up at the ceiling. "He was like a centipede, I think. Or, at least, that's what I feel he was like."

Blake was silent after Ken finished speaking, as she wanted to try and make sense of the comparison he was trying to make.

Entomology wasn't a subject that Blake took much of an interest in, but she did know a little about the insect that Ken was comparing himself to. Centipedes were famous for the number of legs they had and their ability to coordinate them all while moving at relatively fast speeds for something of its size. They were also known to be ravenous hunters, who constantly scoured its habitats for food, only ever stopping to eat prey that they just caught or molt.

"Ah…." Blake said that with a nod of her head as whatever remained of her good mood faded with the realization. "For what it's worth, you've taken it all very well so far. If you hadn't told me, I don't think I ever would've known that you felt that way."

"Sorry." Ken removed his hand from his neck and turned his head towards her.

"It's alright." In the end, Blake couldn't begrudge the blind young man for feeling like he did. Not even amnesia could change who a person was and if that was just how he was, there was no helping how trapped he must've felt at the moment. Losing his sight was one thing, but the fact that he was entirely unable to even begin searching for his past life must've eaten at him, gnawed at his insides like the insect he likened himself to. She couldn't completely empathize with where he was coming from, but she understood feeling trapped in something that was no longer in her control, running as far away from it as possible. "Like I said, you've been handling it very well so far. And besides, I'm your teammate. If you were going to pick someone to confide in, no one's going to blame you for choosing me, or one of the others."

Ken nodded his head, but with the lack of actual response from the boy, Blake couldn't keep from wondering if he actually meant it. Centipedes spent most of their lives on their own, after all.

"I'm going to get some fresh air. You wanna come with?"

Ken was silent for a few moments. He glanced down at the scattered pile of bump-ridden paper at his feet and then at the old-fashioned audio recorder he used to listen to his lessons on, before then turning back to her. A shrug of his shoulders was his only response.

Placing the palms of his hand onto the floor under him, he pushed himself up to a crouching position but stopped himself to pat at the ground to his left. Eventually, his hand found what it was looking for and gripped it firmly, before standing all the way up.

"Have you been getting used to your cane?" The question was one that Blake had been one that she wanted to ask for a while now, ever since he began to learn how to use it a few weeks ago. Whenever he wasn't studying the braille lessons given to him, it seemed like he was always working on getting used to getting around with it, always under the watchful eye and helping hand of one of the team, of course, as his practice required that he have objects put in front of him to avoid. Usually, it would be either Ruby or Yang, but occasionally, on days when those two were both busy, Weiss would step in and take their place.

It was pretty strange. Out of them all, the black-haired girl wouldn't have expected the Schnee Corporation's sole heiress to grow so close to the boy. At least, not as quickly as she did. From what Blake had witnessed of her personality up until now, that assumption would've been in line. Weiss, from the very first day they met, seemed like the kind of person to only get close to someone because it was advantageous to her. That changed the day she, Ruby, and Yang left her in charge of watching Ken, however. Not that she was actively looking for an opportunity to spend time with the amnesiac, even after the change, her standing in the school remained her top priority, but she no longer batted an eye when either Ruby or Yang asked her to watch Ken. She simply accepted. No arguing, no dramatics, no fireworks. It was all very out of character for the girl, though not that Blake personally minded at all.

Blake, when Ken was officially made a member of team RWBY, had fully expected to be in the position that Weiss was currently occupying. The sudden shift in demeanor that the heiress had towards their sole male member allowed her to get more reading done. Not that having to watch him would've affected that much at all, today is a perfect example of that, but she relished the opportunity to just focus on reading and reading alone. She was a good multitasker, but walking around everywhere reading a book _without_ bumping into something took a lot of concentration and it was good to be able to do the opposite for longer periods of time.

"I don't mind lending you my arm if you want."

The frown that presented itself on Ken's face wasn't missed.

"No, that won't be necessary." He turned towards the door and made his way all the way to it with ease, the tip of his metal cane never leaving the ground. When he reached the door, he glanced over his shoulder and nodded his head towards the piece of wood in front of him. "Just tell me where to go and I'll follow."

Blake blinked at the display and after a few seconds of staring, shrugged her shoulders. "Alright, come with me."

* * *

This is our stop." Blake told Ken as she sat herself down on the stone barrier that separated cobblestone from the grass.

"Ah, alright." Ken's approach came to a screeching halt the moment he said that. For a span of several seconds, he turned his sightless gaze around to look at the world around him. "Where exactly are we?"

"Outside, in front of the academy's main building." Blake placed her hands on the stone under her and leaned her body back onto it. "We're right next to the hunter statue if you wanted more specifics."

"Oh…."

"That didn't clear anything up for you, did it?"

"Not at all." Ken smiled at her sheepishly as he scratched at the back of his head with his free hand. "Sorry."

"It's not like that's something you have to apologize for." Blake shook her head in response to his apology, not quite understanding why he'd think that he was in fault in any way. Amber eyes soon found their way back to the statue. "Do you want me to describe it to you? I don't mind."

The blind young man let his arm return back to his side as he frowned. For a few moments, he didn't say anything and just let his head tilt down towards the ground, but eventually, he turned to look back up at her.

"If you want." He shrugged as he turned his head up over her shoulder, which happened to be the direction in which the statue was in. Though, after looking at him more closely, Blake quickly realized that he wasn't looking directly at the statue, but just in the general direction of it. She could hear a bird chirping away somewhere, so she assumed that was what he was focusing on. "I don't see much point in it personally, but if you started, I wouldn't stop you."

Blake snorted at the boy's roundabout way of accepting the offer. "I'll take that as a 'yes', then."

With that, the dark-haired girl took her eyes off of the boy and placed them onto the statue in question behind her. It took her a few moments to come up with the words and when she found them, she began to describe its basic features.

"The statue is made of gray stone, about a story tall, and depicts two hunters standing on top of a large, upward slanted boulder, one of them is male and the other is female. They're both holding a weapon; the male is pointing your standard sword up towards the sky and the female has an ax and is using its head for support. Prowling underneath the two hunters, in an alcove in the hollowed-out rock is a lone beowolf." Blake shifted her eyes to look at the boy, his head was still pointed towards her. "Has someone explained to you about what a Beowolf is?"

"That's the name of a kind of Grimm, isn't it?" Blake saw both of his white brows raise in response to the question, almost as if he didn't expect to be asked a question. That expression, however, faded the second after it appeared. "An all black, bipedal creature that looks like a humanoid wolf? It also usually has a white bone mask covering its face, white claws, and depending on how long it's been alive, an assortment of white protrusions coming out of it that can take the form of either armor plates or defensive spikes?"

When faced with that rather detailed description from the blind boy, Blake found herself mimicking an owl with how she blinked. "Yes…. That sounds, well, perfect, actually."

"Oh, my bad." Ken flashed her an embarrassed smile. She assumed that he was able to pick up on her confusion. "It was in one of the books that the staff gave me to practice with. _All About Grimm and How to Slay Them_ , I think it was called."

"Professor Port's book?" Blake let out yet another amused snort. "I suppose he was the one who gave it to you?"

"Um… Yeah?" The amnesiac tilted his head off to the side slightly. "Why?"

"Oh, it's just very… typical of him, I guess." Her explanation didn't seem to clear anything up for the boy, but she never really meant it to, so she decided to not explain it to him any further. "You'll understand when you have to sit through one of his lectures."

Blake could see that Ken's brows were furrowed from behind his glasses as he opened his mouth, she assumed to call her out on being so obviously, intentionally cryptic with her explanation, but in the end, no words left his mouth. Instead, he closed his mouth and let his lips come together into a tight, very small frown as he turned his head off to the side. That made a smile of equal size appear on her own lips.

"So, what did you think of Professor Port's book?" Blake, deciding that it was best to not leave their conversation on such a sour note, decided to change the topic. That made Ken turn to face her again. "Have you managed to finish it?"

"No, not yet, but from what I read so far, it's alright." The snow-haired boy shrugged. "If he speaks like he talks, then I can understand why you'd not like his lectures."

That made Blake perk up. "Oh, what makes you say all that?"

"Port is very wordy when he doesn't need to be, I can tell as much even in Braille. And, for whatever reason, he decided to put a lot of his own personal experiences with Grimm into the book, even though it's supposed to be mainly an educational textbook. It sometimes added useful information to what was being presented, but other times, it would distract and ultimately take away from the material that's actually being taught."

"You know…" Blake leaned her body forwards. "That doesn't really sound like a book you think is 'alright'."

Ken gave a sideways nod. "Mechanically speaking, the book was fine. Plus, he uses a lot of pretty words."

"Pretty words'?" Her ears perked up when she heard that.

"Oh…." Tilting his head towards his left side, Ken reached up with his corresponding hand and started to scratch at the back of his scalp. "How do I explain this…?" His hand then proceeded to transition over towards his chin as he cupped it within his fingers. The boy's lips parted, but he didn't say anything at first. Instead, they were closed wordlessly, before then being opened again a few seconds later. "Words… For some reason, some just appeal to me naturally. I can't explain why, but I just feel… good after reading or saying certain words. How they're structured, how they're spoken, how they're meant to be interpreted. Even how they're used in conjunction with other words…. That all just has a magical quality to it, if that makes sense to you."

"I can't say that it does, unfortunately." Ken lowered his arm as Blake spoke. "While I do love to read myself, I can't say that it's because I outright _love_ the words on the page like you do. I do think I can understand what you're saying with that last part, though."

Ken smiled a thin smile and shook his head, looking off to his right once again. "Yeah, I think that's the case with most people."

When the snow-haired amnesiac proceeded to stay silent in response, Blake immediately thought that, in her usual bluntness, she had offended the boy in some way. That, or at least made him feel uncomfortable about a part of himself that he deemed really important. Those thoughts, however, were soon dashed when he opened his mouth and asked her a question she wasn't expecting.

"Do you hear that?"

Perking up her own ears, it just so happened that she did.

* * *

Blake didn't know if the scene that she was being forced to be witness to should've surprised her or not. It was a tale as old as time, four vultures circling a helpless rabbit. The latter with their back trapped into a corner, wanting to back up even further into the concrete as the four with malicious sneers splayed on their beaks as they continued to toy with their helpless prey. There was, however, one big difference between the scenes of then and now: she doubted that those past examples were so racially charged.

The two of them hadn't gone far from where they originally were. It took maybe twenty/thirty seconds at the most, as they found the incident taking place just off the path leading to the school's entrance. The harassment was taking place behind one of the white stone archways that covered the front of the school, but she could still see them just fine from where she and Ken stood.

The two of them were actually to the side of the arched pillar right next to the entrance, using it as cover as to not be noticed by the harassers, who she recognized from the initiation and some of her classes.

Team CRDL. A team of all boys, which was made up of Cardin Winchester, Russel Thrush, Dove Bronzewing, and Sky Lark. Cardin was your standard meathead; tall, broad shoulders, and had a frame that was built for muscle. The only thing about him that didn't lead her to that same conclusion was his slicked back orange hair, but that was for obvious reasons. Russel was significantly less built and tall than Cardin, which could be said about all of Cardin's other teammates as well, but the boy did have one defining feature and that was his light green mohawk. Bronzewing looked exactly as his name suggested with his light brown hair, but outside of that, the boy lacked any real defining features. Similarly, Blake had the same problems describing Lark, who only stood out because of the color of his long, slicked-back grey hair.

Blake recognized the person the person that they were bullying fairly quickly. While she wasn't the only Faunus in Beacon, she was the only one who really stood out to her for some reason—Blake attributed it to the long brown rabbit ears that stuck out the top of her head.

Velvet Scarlatina. She had long brown hair the same color as her rabbit ears and eyes. The rabbit Faunus was a member of team CFVY, a year senior to both team RWBY and CRDL by a year, which only made CRDL's target so astounding to her.

"Don't." Blake, noticing that her charge looked like he wanted to rush right in and help the girl, held an arm out in front of Ken to make sure he didn't step in and he, not being able to see the appendage, actually walked right into it. The moment the blind young man heard her description of what was happening, the change was clearly visible.

"What? Why?" The anger behind his sightless glare was turned away from CRDL and onto her. "I thought you said that those guys were—"

"—I already told you, that girl is a Faunus!" Not wanting to draw the attention of the bullies that the boy was attempting to interrupt, Blake also lowered the volume of her voice down to a whisper as she turned his body towards her.

That interruption made Ken rear back as if she had slapped him in the face. "So what? I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Think about it." Not blaming the young man for wanting to step in and wanting to have that understanding show, Blake took a deep breath in through her nostrils, breathed out, and removed some of her earlier intensity from her voice. "You help her now, then what? She gets to not deal with this for right now, but what about later? Are you going to be there every time she gets picked on?"

"H-Hey!" The girl getting harassed let out a pained yelp from behind her. That caused the boy's gaze to veer away from Blake and over her shoulder. "Let go of my ear!"

Ken made an attempt to push past her, but she stopped him with her body the moment he tried. "Blake—!"

"How long did it take us to get here?" The boy froze the moment she pointed that out. "What was it? Twenty, thirty seconds?" He turned his head down towards the ground. "That was from the main entrance to the building. Do you seriously think that we're the only ones who noticed that this was happening?"

Ken took a deep breath in and let it shoot back out in a huff, before then taking a step backward. His sightless gaze flitted away from her, it only moving a few inches off to her left. Upon following it, Blake found that he was "looking" over towards where the four were bullying the Faunus.

A deep scowl spread across the dark-haired girl's lips at the sight. "Look, I'm not trying to say that you're wrong for wanting to go help her, but—"

"—But it's just the wrong thing to do in this situation." The peculiar tone that Ken was using fueled a morbid curiosity in Blake and the moment he finished speaking, she found her eyes drifting over to the boy. She could feel it in his voice, the defeat that his words portrayed as he conceded, but a part of her wanted to confirm it with her own eyes. To make sure that he wouldn't try anything that he would regret. He was staring right at the ground, his body trembling slightly. "It'll just make things harder for her in the long run…. That's what you're saying, right?"

At that, Blake turned back towards the scene that made her mouth feel like it was filled with ashes. "Unfortunately."

* * *

Everything about this was too familiar for Kaneki. The scenario that made him want to move, the arguments that kept his feet anchored, the helplessness that made him want to scream until his vocal chords ripped apart…. They were all compounding on one another, forcing him to remember a night that seemed to keep on coming back to him no matter what he tried. All of a sudden, he was standing on a bustling city street, looking into a trash-ridden alleyway.

A woman whose tears were still prominent in a downpour, casting a bleak and bitterly accepting smile towards him as a fleshy noose surrounded her head. Around her stood four men, all of which holding nothing but contempt for the being that they were sent to cull-a being that was more like all them than any of them would like to admit. All the while, his eyes are spread wide open and focused on the woman's lips as she tells her daughter-the daughter whose eyes he had to shield-to live—

"Ken? Ken, can you hear me?" Pure darkness shattered the image that he had been so focused on. It surrounded him, put him in a stranglehold, reminded him of where he actually was. Though, currently, that fact wasn't too clear at the moment.

"Where— What…?" Kaneki furrowed his brows as he tried to recall what had happened after he conceded to Blake's point. Shaking his head to try and physically clear it, he reached a hand up and gripped his suddenly aching temple. "I'm sorry, I…"

Kaneki paused when he realized that he was having a hard time trying to describe what happened to him.

"Spaced out?" The former ghoul now recognized the voice to belong to Blake. "Yeah, I could tell. You were so out of it that I had to drag you away from where we were by the arm." There was a pregnant pause. "We're back in our room if you were wondering."

Kaneki frowned at the explanation. He wasn't prone to being someone who let his thoughts consume him so wholly. Sure, it would happen when he was alone, but never when he had someone standing right next to him. A pang of guilt hit him just then.

"Did something happen?" Blake's voice was laced with concern. "I know that you were frustrated about not being able to step in, but—"

"—Yeah, I'm fine." Kaneki lowered his arm then. "I just…" He again paused, this time to contemplate just how much he should tell Blake about what really happened to him. "…started to remember something."

There was an audible shift in his teammate's voice as she spoke next. "Something similar to what was happening to that girl?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Unfortunately."

Blake was once again silent after he answered. That silence only lasted a second before she asked him another question.

"Ken, do you mind if I asked what you thought of the Faunus' situation?"

"I don't see why not." Kaneki turned to face where Blake's voice was coming from and shrugged his shoulders. "It is very topical as of the moment."

The ghoul stopped to think about the question for just a moment, before finally answering.

"I think what's happening to them is awful. They're being treated like second-class citizens for no more reason than what they were born as." Kaneki, for obvious reasons, found himself relating to the Faunus' plight very closely. "If that girl back there was human, there's no way any of that would be happening to her. She'd be treated how she deserves: just like any other creature with thoughts and emotions."

Blake was quiet once again. This time, her silence spanned a couple more seconds than the last time—

"Do you regret listening to me back there?"

The question was like a slap across the cheek, but thankfully, no matter how much it caught him off guard, he already had an answer set in his mind regarding that. Having already answered it once before, it was an easy task.

"No, it was the right decision." Kaneki shook his head slowly as he found himself standing back in that alley once more, watching as the caring mother of a young girl be decapitated just because she dared to try and live. "They outnumbered us four to two and I doubt it'd take anything less than physical violence to get them to stop. And given how I am now…."

Then, just like before, darkness enclosed on him, wrapped its arms around his throat, and squeezed. It was then that he became deathly aware of the cane in his hand. He chuckled and smiled as a thin, warm line formed down the length of his cheek.

"I just wish that I was strong enough to actually do something."

…

 **Chapter End.**

* * *

Yo, so this came out much later than it needed to be. I'm sorry about that, I admittedly got super fucking lazy when my first semester in college ended. Worked hard during finals week and I really wanted to take a month break before I got back into being the meantime, I've played through all of the new God of War. Extremely fun game, if any of you were curious and I suggest you all go buy and play it if you're a fan of the franchise. 9/10, would be a perfect 10/10 if the enemy variety was more plentiful (especially the bosses).

Also, I've noticed that a lot of you have been asking if Kaneki was still a ghoul and just to nip things in the bud now, the answer is: yes, he is still very much a ghoul, but he is not one right now.

Why is he able to eat human food all of a sudden, huh, Death? Why isn't he able to just heal the eye he's missing back? Well, why are you guys asking me questions like this and not just letting me write the actual story, so you can find out? Like, I love all y'all, but you gotta be patient when it comes to shit like this.

Also, also, if any of you were curious as to why I chose to make Kaneki blind and powerless in the first place, I did it because I really wanted to strip the dude of everything that made him, well, him back in Tokyo Ghoul and just have the stripped down, bare bones version of his character. I feel that the gradual progression of him slowly gaining those traits back as the story goes on is a much more compelling story than just having him be normal. It also allows for more opportunity to get the characters invested in one another as Kaneki needs to rely on team RWBY and team RWBY will be forced to interact with him almost every day of their school life.

Anyways, next chapter will involve Yang and Kaneki touching each other. A lot. Giggity.


End file.
